


Solo For Two

by paper (Aimz), sunaga



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Birds, Childhood Friends, Erik has Feelings, Inspired by Music, M/M, Missed Connections, Pining, Separations, Toys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-09
Updated: 2013-09-09
Packaged: 2017-12-26 01:20:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 13,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/959906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aimz/pseuds/paper, https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaga/pseuds/sunaga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What secret is the owner of Magda's Menagerie hiding in his clockwork birds?  The answer lies in a bygone summer, when two lonely boys held a connection over German books and clockwork birds.  A summer that left Erik only with memories and Charles with a clockwork bird with no feet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Erik

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Solo for Two - Art Masterpost](https://archiveofourown.org/works/959821) by [paper (Aimz)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aimz/pseuds/paper), [sunaga](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunaga/pseuds/sunaga). 



> Thank you to afrocurl for beta'ing and answering my last minute questions. Thank you to paperstains for the cheerleading, the steampunk brainstorming even though I wound up not doing a steampunk AU, and for being such a lovely collaborator.
> 
> This was written for xmenreversebang, so please check out paperstains' wonderful art over [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/959821)!

Nothing is immune against the implacable march of time.  It had taken from him many things, his mother's employment, her life, but most alarming to Erik was the slow but constant loss of memory.  Things that had once been so clear in his childhood rusted and corroded under the weight of time.

 

There are some things time has not taken from him: the dimple at the corner of the boy's mouth, his warmth beneath the summer sun, and the blood that constantly ran beneath his skin.  But these are not things that will bring him to the boy again.  He does not remember enough to draw his face, but he remembers enough to always take a second glance when he sees flushed skin and blue and bright eyes.

 

Once, Erik could sing in perfect pitch the song the boy had sung to him.  But, being young, he thought he could never forget something so important.  But now, the inconsistent flow of memory has receded and taken with it the melody.  He remembers a line or two here, a note there, matching the snatches with the face and smile he remembers.  If only he could remember, he could let the boy know, _I'm here.  I remember.  Do you?_

 

 

*

 

 

When he isn't helping his mother with her work around the estate -- his hands covered with flour or gardening gloves -- he works on his figures and reading because his mother wants him to be well-educated.  He still speaks English with a slight accent because his mother taught him German first -- to spread his mind, she said -- and he's working on that.  In the time he has between helping his mother and studying, he finds time to tinker.

 

Around the house, he picks up knick knacks here and there.  Lost washers, screws in need of replacement, metal discarded into the trash.  He finds these things, broken and in disuse, in need of mending, and in these he sees potential.

 

Laying these objects across the workbench in the gardener's shed, he decides how he will repurpose these lost items.

 

He's done practical things like clocks and wrenches and metronomes -- quite similar to clocks, really.  It is the toy animals he wants to make the most though, the closest thing to a pet he has.   He feels guilty about it, animals so impractical when there is so much else to do, but he treasures the way his mother's face softens when she looks at them.

 

He started making the gadgets as a low-risk way of him exercising his talent for metals, and his mother found it harmless.  She brought him a pocket watch for his tenth birthday, and by that night, he'd taken the whole thing apart, each cog and spring revolving in his room held in place by his talent.  She merely raised her eyebrows and asked if he could put it back together as well.

 

"Don't take something apart if you can't put it back together better," she said.

 

It is clear though, his mother enjoys his work, her smile soft each time he shows her his latest item.  This is what he thinks of when he shirks the practical and creates clockwork animals.  He's made the mouse beneath the kitchen sink, the raccoons who prowl the roofs and the squirrels who chitter at them.  But the birds in the garden his mother so carefully tends, although that is not her primary job here --  Those would be a challenge to make; four legged beasts that crawl the earth are easy enough, but to make something steady enough to _fly_ , now _there_.  There is a challenge to occupy his mind and hands as the summer wears on.

 

 

 

There are no children on the estate.  Other staff with young children send them to live at relatives' or friends' homes or boarding schools.  His mother is adamant he stay with her.  It's not very hard.   It's a live-in staff, and he is lucky to get his own room, a walk-in pantry repurposed as a maid's room.

 

He'd quite forgotten entirely that other children could exist here when the boy appears one morning, sweating in his wool trousers.

 

His mother's just finished fussing over him and gone to do work.  Erik remains, standing behind for a little, watching her disappearing figure.

 

"You speak German?" a voice says from behind excitedly.

 

Erik looks behind him.  Wary, he nods at the rich boy in his shiny penny-loafers and pressed pants.

 

"I've always wanted to learn languages," he continues on, entirely oblivious to how deep Erik's frown is.  The boy draws closer across the well-kept lawn as he speaks.  "See, they think I'd be a quick study of languages, but they make it so dull by making me sit with tutors and workbooks.  It's not the same as actually talking with someone you see?"

 

No, he doesn't see, but Erik still nods.

 

"I have some old German books if you'd like.  I don't need them anymore," Erik says, hoping to stop the boy from coming even closer.  As it is, Erik can already see the drops of sweat across the boy's face.

 

"That would be great!"  The boy grabs Erik's hand, and Erik wants to pull away but doesn't want to insult the boy.  "Oh, thank you!  Listen, I have to go, but will you still be here?  Of course you will, I'll see you then!"  The boy runs back into the house, his feet leaving marks in the wet grass. 

 

Erik goes his own way, thinking it's just like boys like him to leave like that.  He looks at his hand and shakes it out, hoping to get rid of the remainder of his touch like excess flour.  He decides to avoid the boy.

 

 

 

The boy eventually corners him though, and to stop him from continually pestering him, Erik goes off in search of the German books his mom taught him from.  Of course, the boy doesn't take the hint to wait for him.  Instead, he follows Erik to the garden shed where he's taken to storing the few things that won't fit in his room.

 

The boy sees the toy bird on his desk, and heads straight for it, making no remark on why Erik is storing things in a tool shed.  He scoops it up, cupping the body and the limp wings like it's something precious.

 

"Did you make this?"  His joy is naked on his face, like he's never had to hide it for fear of losing it. 

 

Erik nods.

 

"That's amazing!"  He lifts the bird and looks up at it, trying to see through it with the sunlight.  "I've never seen anything like it."

 

Erik flexes his power and then the bird flaps its wings and flies around the room.

 

"Does it sing too?"

 

"No," but Erik's already thinking of how it could.

 

The boy hands it back to him, but Erik shakes his head.  "You can keep her."  He closes the boy's fingers around the bird.

 

The boy forgets the book entirely, and Erik is left staring at the book in his hand.

 

 

 

Erik makes it a point to avoid the boy with the bright eyes and pretty flush.  But it seems some things are unavoidable, especially with people like Charles who possess that powerful, overwhelming charisma of someone who's never been denied anything.  It is a powerful thing, especially when tempered with Charles' kindness.

 

With the promise of more of Erik's old German books to teach himself from, Charles wanders into Erik's room and looks around with his wide eyes.  Erik reaches under his bed and flips through the old books, thinking which is most suitable to learn from at first.  He finds an appropriate book in the middle of the stack, but he has fond memories of the next book, so he opens that one up too.

 

As Erik flips through a book with music in it, Charles asks, "What is that?"  His arm reaches around Erik's and his fingertips follow the black music lines. 

 

Alarmed Charles had grown so close without his notice, he speaks to hide his unease.  "It's a song my mother tried to teach me.  I don't like opera, and I don't know how to read music."

 

"Well, I can read music just fine; I play piano.  But I don't know how to say any of this.  It's German."  He tries the first line, and when all that comes out is incomprehensible despite the grammar books, Erik teaches him each syllable.

 

Patience is not a strong suit of Erik's so they only get through that first line.  At its end, Erik hands the grammar book to Charles.

 

"Oh!  I completely forgot about that!" 

 

 _I know_ , Erik thinks.

 

"Would you mind teaching me the rest of it?"

 

"This book is mine."

 

"Well, can I keep coming by to learn the rest from you?  If you help me with my German I'll help you read the music."

 

Charles smiles at him, his pleasure still open upon his face.  Erik thinks that as naive as that may be, he would like to keep that look upon Charles' face, wonders what it would be like to be so open.

 

"Alright," he replies.

 

 

 

Erik finds himself teaching the boy German, and Charles seems to have no concept of personal space, always leaning in close, staying close, and Erik knows Charles is younger than him but maybe --

 

Erik lets those thoughts go no further.  Charles' exuberance and love and affection is shown to all. 

 

Charles has his hands on Erik's shoulders and leans on his toes to peek over.  With Erik's additional height, Charles can't see, so he sits across from Erik, their knees knocking together and their heads close together.  Erik doesn't pull away.  It is, perhaps, because of the natural kindness of Charles or the fact he is too close that compels Erik to say more than he wants to.

 

"I have a small talent for metalwork," Erik confesses at the end of their music lesson.

 

Charles grins.  "And I have a knack for minds."  He stacks his book and straps them together.

 

Erik is taken aback.  "Minds?"

 

"People worry we pry at the vaults of their minds, but we really don't.  Who'd want to know all that anyway?  It's like I'm a radio; I can receive very strong thoughts and feelings, and I can send back, but it's much easier to people like me.  Too much effort when I can just talk to people."  Charles takes a deep breath.   It's the closest Erik's seen him come to being upset.

 

"People ask you a lot?"

 

Charles laughs, his prior passion turning into something easier.  "Yes.  Don't people ask you if you're making weapons here?"

 

Erik grows quiet, and as their eyes stay on each other, the space between them negligent enough Erik can smell the sugar from Charles' tea on his breath, a connection is made between them.

 

"Do you play chess?" Erik asks.

 

 

 

Near the end of summer, once Erik has taught Charles all the lyrics in his mother's songbook, he asks for the bird back.

 

"Give me the bird back," Erik says.

 

Charles bites his lip and looks away, clearly torn between doing the right thing and doing what he wants.  Erik is surprised the dilemma even occurred to him.  Erik tries to erase the uncertainty on his face. "I'll give her back.  Do you remember how you asked if she sang?"

 

Charles' face lights up, and Erik feels satisfaction.  He runs back into the house, up the stairs to where he occupies a medium-sized guest room with a bed far too large for a boy his age.  Charles looks expectantly behind him when he goes in, waiting for Erik in the entryway.  Erik shakes his head.

 

"Come on," Charles insists.

 

Erik shakes his head.  "I've never been there while there are people staying there."  He's only been there to help clean out the rooms, open the curtains, lay new sheets and make sure everything is as if it's never been locked up and dusty.

 

Charles comes out of the cooled house and into the heat where Erik waits.  He offers his hand.  "Won't you come with me?"

 

Maybe it's curiosity at what the inside of the house is like from this side of things, maybe it's something else.  Erik takes Charles' hand, and Charles closes his fingers around his palm and leads him to his room.  Erik doesn't notice too much about his surroundings, more worried he'll be caught not just here but with Charles.

 

The bird lies on a wooden desk that has a feast decorating its sides.  Charles returns the bird to him wholeheartedly, and Erik wonders if he could keep him like a bird in his garden, all shining gears.

 

 

 

He makes it so she sings on her own.  Working on her whenever Charles leaves him alone, he changes out the eyes from plastic beads to ones of blue-green glass.  Polishes her feathers and etches in the feathers beneath her wings.  It will be fitting he thinks, to make the bird sing the song they've spent just as long learning as it's taken him to make her fly.  He imagines the wonderment on Charles' face as he realizes not only can he read the music on his own, but that the bird can fly.  Its flight will be his quiet thanks.

 

Erik knows Charles was thrilled to see the bird capable of flight.  He remembers the rush of pleasure that could only have come from Charles' reception of the bird.  But the memory is blurred, a palimpsest, overlaid by his own anger.

 

Instead of remembering Charles' excitement, he remembers the way Charles stood helplessly as the man who came for him took the bird and tossed it to the ground.  Its legs, thin, delicate, and weak snapped.  Erik cannot remember Charles' face, but he remembers Charles did nothing.

 

The bird's feet were broken, and what good was a bird who could fly if it could not land?

 

"We're going," the man says, and Charles is pulled away.  The man gives Erik a look that makes him feel dirty, common, and poor.  "You should never have been consorting with his like Charles."  The comment, Erik knows, is directed at him.

 

Charles doesn't come to see Erik.  Erik spends the night and day in anger at the way Charles let the man dictate his fate to him.

 

Charles leaves without a word, the only sign he was ever here the absence of the clockwork bird, which, in his anger, Erik never had a chance to fix.  When he sees the bird gone, the anger leaves his body, leaving him alone once more in the large house.

 

 

*

 

 

Once he is old enough to leave his mother, training to become an engineer seems the logical thing to do until a transportation wizard by the name of Azazel -- he never gave out his last name, only the people who wrote his checks know that -- discovers his talent for clockwork animals.  It is Azazel who encouraged him to make his own way, independent of the major engineering companies.

 

"I can't make a living doing this," Erik replies flatly.

 

Azazel raises an eyebrow, saying nothing and letting that single arrogant expression say it all.

 

"Okay," Azazel replies, quite clearly thinking otherwise.

 

 

 

It is only when Erik was older he realized why his mother indulged his tinkering.  Azazel brings up the subject of Erik's tinkering again, saying, "What are you doing working as a mechanic?"

 

Azazel avoids Erik's gaze and examines the mole Erik brought in his pocket, scratching its stomach, rubbing its ears, watching the way it squirms and crawls about on the floor.

 

"Saving money to be an engineer.  Upward mobility," Erik sourly replies as he examines the blueprints for a new cross-country train.

 

"Erik, don't you see though?  Engineering will bring you a secure future, but for that, you must work for other people.  With clockwork, you would answer to no man but yourself."

 

"I'd be well paid enough to do so?"

 

"Of course.  The rich will pay much for their luxuries and none at all for their necessities."  And Azazel continues observing the mole, letting it scurry across the wood-chip strewn floor.

 

 

 

Azazel is the first man Erik meets whose talent could not be hidden.  With his red skin and pronged tail Erik wonders how he'd even made it to adulthood.  However, Azazel lives as if he is not marked, and Erik admires that.  Before becoming an engineer, Azazel had been a magician making his living off of sleight of hand, illusions, and escape acts.

 

Erik likes him.  He learns much from him, Azazel shaping and refining raw talent with technique.  With the amount of time Erik spends with Azazel, he hears a lot about Janos, but Janos is surprisingly shy.

 

"Not shy," Azazel corrects, "merely selective about who sees him."  Before Erik can reply from the metal stool with his feet hooked in its rungs, Azazel continues, "Ah, my small siren, here he is."

 

Janos walks in, and Erik recognized him as the mute boy who ran the numbers.  Only someone working at a desk would wear a white suit.

 

"Don't be confused Erik, he sings just perfectly."  He presses a kiss to Janos' neck.  Azazel looks up at Erik.  "What, did you think you were the first man to like men?"

 

Erik doesn't know whether to be shocked at Azazel's bluntness, confused at being read so easily, or envious at Janos for sidling even closer into Azazel's lap and Azazel's tail wrapping around him.

 

 

 

"Why do you call him your siren?"  Erik asks one day.

 

Azazel looks up from the engine that is currently in its prototype phase.  "I call him that because he is one.  You will never hear him speak, but ah, to hear it..."

 

Janos, sitting at his desk with his ledger, rolls his eyes.  Erik wonders if that is Janos' talent.  Azazel continues, "I am honored to be the one he lets hear it."   He takes a few steps over to Janos and nuzzles him.  Janos pats his head and then shoves him away to finish his numbers.

 

"Why not make him talk, wouldn't that make everything easier?" 

 

Janos glares, and Azazel shakes his head.

 

"I do not think you understand," one of them says.  "You cannot force such things."

 

 

 

As a mechanic, Erik has a sizeable sum saved, and when the house his mother worked in is placed for sale, he buys it.  The original owners had lost favor in a political scandal, and subsequently lost their fortune.  He finds it just they live to see the hired help take their home.  He views it as justice at its purest.

 

He knocks the main house down, rebuilds it into a more modest home.  He leaves everything else, the gardens, the old workshop out of sentiment, but connects the orchid room to the main house.

 

With the new home renovated, even as small as it is, it is very empty.  Even though very little of the original house remains, he still remembers Charles running through it.  He vaguely regrets not saving that staircase and path to Charles' room, but then he remembers his maid's room and does not regret at all.  And yet --  Charles has stayed on his mind, a constant pleasant memory; something inescapable each time he makes the animals.  Is it wrong to see if they still shared that?

 

It occurs to him, then.  He has no connections to find Charles; Charles was clearly from wealth and Erik knows nothing of that life.  But it is the wealthy who would buy his trinkets.  And, well, if Erik could make a living as his own master, let that stand as well.

 

It is at this point, with money and land, that he thinks _fuck it_ , and makes his first mail-order catalogue.

 

 

*

 

 

After creating the mail-order-only catalogue, Erik spends no money on additional publicity.  Azazel expresses his dismay that Erik relied, and continues to rely, solely on person referral. 

 

"They're so lifelike!" people exclaim as they discover his work.  "Why, if I didn't see the mechanisms and gears, I would think it the actual thing!"  And the news spreads so on and so on, enough that even Azazel limits his complaints.

 

These people pay him in money and compliments, falling over themselves with lavish praise, both sincere and false.  He takes their words and their money, but he knows these people would never look at him twice with his dirty hands if he wasn't working for them. 

 

He likes the ability to make the cynicism melt right off their smug faces and replace it with that childlike wonder.  Those are hidden faces, and he is reminded most of Charles when he kneels to give an animal to a child and their faces radiate like a small sun.  There is nothing hidden there, everything is freely given, and Erik grows warm next to their warmth.  Erik wonders if Charles has kept that light in him to adulthood.  Erik knows he certainly hasn't.

 

What was once a business he could handle on his own -- from invoices, to packaging, the creation, the shipping, the payment -- has grown into a paperwork monstrosity he cannot handle alone.  He needed no one at first, but when he advanced from mail-catalogue to custom-orders it became much harder to keep ahead of the growing mountain of papers.  Hiring someone seemed the solution, but he ran through aids like water in a sieve.

 

One man's misfortune though, is another's fortune.  Angel Salvadore, soloist at the Royal Ballet, returns from abroad after injuring herself and needs work.  Erik's only met her a few times, but she's a friend of Emma's.  Angel needs a job while she recovers, and Erik needs help.

 

She does good work, she's cranky, he's cranky, they put up with each other's moods.  She keeps the paperwork away from him and he is immensely pleased.  Although her ability to keep ahead of orders can be trifling when he wants to bury some orders like the Xaviers'.

 

Standing in the middle of the doorway, just a foot over the threshold, Angel looks down at her clipboard.  The clipboard, he knows, is for.  She never comes unprepared.  Slowly raising her eyes, she looks around the room in organized disarray and back at him.  "Erik, you have another gift from the Xaviers."

 

He scowls, setting down the screwdriver, but leaves the screws hovering in the air with his talent.  "Tell them _no_.  They can wait for their order just like everyone else.  Just because they're rich -- "

 

"No need to continue, I got it."  Angel checks a box on her clipboard, and then hands it to him.  "Sign here to confirm you received their package."

 

"What did they send this time?"

 

"Alcohol."

 

"You can have it."

 

"I already helped myself.  It's good stuff.  You're loss."

                       

 

 

Emma Frost is the opera's finest soprano.  She loves the fine things in life, and it shows from her tailored clothes, to the patent leather heels she loves, down to the diamonds she wears even to visit Erik.

 

Peeling off her elbow-length gloves, she proclaims, "I've come to see how Angel's adjusting."

 

Angel's been here awhile, and Emma hasn't visited her, even in her roughest spells.  Erik grunts, knowing it's a thin excuse for Emma to see him and read him with her strong talent for minds.  Why exactly, he doesn't know, but Emma had remarked when they met he'd one of the most closeted off minds she'd ever encountered. 

 

"You're so cynical," she replies.

 

 _That's why I distrust you_ , he thinks sourly.

 

She smiles, draws a finger across the top of a bureau, and finding no dust, sets down her folded gloves.

 

"You got a smoke?" she inquires, smiling like a cat.  She looks at home in his sitting room with the sunlight coming in from the windows.  _You should put a piano here_.

 

"I thought you said it was a disgusting habit I should quit."  _I don't play_. 

 

"For you, yes.  For me, it's classy."

 

He goes into the kitchen and digs out a cigarette and lighter from beneath the sink. He holds both out to her.

 

"Ahh, thanks, Erik."

 

They each take a seat, smoke filling the room until Angel comes roving in with her nose scrunched up.

 

"Who's smoking those ugly fags?"

 

Erik tenses for a moment, and Emma pauses, cigarette poised between her fingers to stare at him.

 

 _She was in England for the ballet many years_ , she sends.

 

The moment passes and Erik remembers he heard something like that before.

 

Emma takes another drag and exhales more dramatically than necessary.  _If you'd just gone on that European tour like I'd told you to..._ , she continues.

"Ugh," Angel says, swinging the window out from its hinges.  "I should've known it was you Emma.  He only smokes when someone drives him to it.  You certainly would."  She moves on to the next set of windows, leaning up on the tips of her toes to reach the latches.

 

Emma raises an eyebrow.  "I thought that would be you.  Goodness knows you drove me to that and more."

 

She lowers her eyes, a perfect picture of demureness, and Angel clenches her fists.  "Just because you got me this job --"

 

Looking between the two of them, Erik intervenes, not wanting the slow haze of nicotine to dissipate so soon. 

 

 

 

"What will I do when you decide to return to dancing?"

 

Despite the metal casings suspended throughout the room, Angel is at ease.  Erik suspects it's because she has a talent, but what it is, he doesn't know.  He'd lost many employees who were uncomfortable with his more-than-modest talent. 

 

"You mean, who else will put up with your PMS?"

 

Erik floats a ball-peen towards him, and Angel weaves her way through the room, careful to not touch the metal.  With her black stockings, he can imagine her moving across the stage in the same smooth manner.

 

She sets the papers down on his table.  While she won't disturb his metals, she has no problem moving the papers around his desk in what she calls order.  "You know I'll never dance again."

 

"That's not true."  He sets down his screwdriver.  Dressed in black, it must be hot for her, but he hasn't seen her wear any other colors.

 

"I will never dance as a professional again.  What would you do with one of your birds --  Having flown across oceans, could it ever be content with a horizon made of four walls?  Would it forget the ocean wind?"

 

He bites off his retort, _When did you become a poet?_ He knows Angel's heart beats soft.  Instead, he says, "You're no less a dancer, an artist, or beautiful for performing on a smaller stage."

 

She snorts.  "Easy for you to say.  You're still fixing broken up things for broken boys who'll never return."

 

 

 

The one and only time Emma gets him drunk, he lets the entire embarrassing story out.  There was a boy -- that was no surprise to Emma, very little phased her except for cheapness -- Erik wanted to find him again, and he was trying to do so with the birds.

 

"And what, pray tell, is the logic behind making birds and sending them out in the world _to other buyers_?"  Even through the fog of alcohol he could hear her disdain.

 

"Because who else would make a clockwork bird that sings that song?"

 

Emma tops off his glass and slides it to him across her marble counter.  From his seat on the other side he barely catches it, before it blazes a watery path to her pricey floor.  "For all you know he's forgotten you and that song he sang to you entirely."

 

"I have to believe in something."

 

"You're no fun drunk, you know."

 

Thank goodness they were drinking in her flat.  He barely makes it to her couch where he wakes the next morning to aspirin and a wide glass of water.

 

 

 

"Those who can't, teach," Angel sneers.

 

"Take it," Erik growls.  He tries to put the heavy music box in her arms.

 

"I'm not taking one of your fancy music boxes you asshole."  She slaps his hands away, and then crosses her arms beneath her breasts.

 

"It's not one I'd sell anyway, no one wants a record player anymore anyway."  His arms are starting to grow tired, and he regrets that his talent does not extend to wooden boxes heavy enough to sink a ship.  He also regrets his workroom is too cluttered to put the damned thing back down.

 

"Oh great, give me the unwanted music box.  How fitting Lehnsherr.  No need to rub it in that I'll never dance again."

 

"Angel, just take the damn thing."  He can feel himself breaking into a sweat.

 

He shoves it at her.  "Take it or I'll drop it right here, I swear."  Angel seems both angered and flustered.  When his grip loosens, she makes a grab for the box.

 

She hefts it in her arms, the blood rushing across the tops of her cheekbones.  As she leaves, holding the box with little effort, she says, "It's rather sweet you know, that you whistle as you program the birds with the same song."

 

Erik grunts.  He knows an apology when he hears one.  Later, as she plays a Nina Simone record, he pretends not to notice the way she slowly dances as the ballerina on the player turns to a waltz.

 

 

 

"Why would you set certain birds to certain songs?"

 

"People always want privacy.  Deliver love notes, I don't care."

 

Angel looks at him.  "Maybe.  But you're very focused about this one thing.  Whose letter are you waiting for?"  She leans on his table, not minding the grease there or the eyeful she's giving him. "What will you do once you get a reply?  Be afraid of gifts that are too easy to come by, Erik."

 

Erik curses his memory and for losing the song book.  He wouldn't call this particular endeavor easy.  Unable to remember the actual song, he'd been forced to do his best at imitating the song, setting it to a bird, and hoping for the best.

 

She digs through his pile of pending orders, rearranging his desk until she finds what she wants.  She mutters about his workroom not having enough space, but Erik likes this room with a window that overlooks the old gardening shed.  With both hands, she hands him a box.

 

He doesn't take it, just eyes it.  "What is this?"

 

"The very persistent order from the Xaviers you've been avoiding.  She was _extremely_  insistent you see this as soon as possible.  She offered a bonus big enough that if you don't want to fix it, I will."

 

"You don't know the first thing about mechanics."

 

"Nope, but they'll never know that."

 

"Give me that." He takes the box from her hands and sets it back into the pile of orders.

 

 

 

"You're fucking stubborn, Lehnsherr.  Just find the boy and fuck him out of your system," Emma says the next time she visits.

 

"Emma."  He thinks about slipping rat poison into her coffee.  She raises in eyebrow in response.

 

"What's a five year age gap now that you're older."

 

"You're disgusting."

 

"Just the truth," she replies and admires her manicure.  "What do you fantasize about then?"

 

Although Erik will never admit it to anyone, his mind often wanders to a particular fantasy.  He and Charles meet again, and Charles is just as kind and giving as ever.  He's not sure how the bird will fit in.  But Erik has thought and thought about all the improvements he could make to that first flying bird.  How he could make her flight smoother, the bird more lifelike, her song sweeter.

 

Of course, that would require so many updates she'd no longer be the same bird.  But the desire to give Charles the bird he promised he would --  One day Charles will have that bird.

 

Until then, he still creates other animals of course, plodding bears, yammering dogs, but he pursues the birds with such intensity those are what sell best.

 

Erik does his very best not to project this at Emma.

 

 

 

Angel's contract is for a limited period, and with it about to expire, Erik would like her to stay.  He finds her in the orchid room she's taken to working on.  She has a mister in one hand, and the other rests on her hip as she admires the room full of buds.

 

He stays near the entrance and admires the silhouette she cuts against the wide windows.  "You're welcome to stay here as long as you would like," he states.

 

She sets the mister next to a purple orchid that's been blooming for two months.  Pivoting in her boots, she spits back, "I don't need your _charity_."

 

"It's not charity if I," he squeezes out the word, "need you here."

 

"I'm replaceable.  Any university drop-out can do this job."

 

"You said it yourself," he says softly, slowly, and just a little fondly,  but only someone who knew him well would know that.  "Who else will put up with my mood swings?"

 

Angel gives a small smile despite herself.  "I said your PMS, that's what I said."

 

"Just know that."

 

"I'll stay," she declares, "but I want a salary increase.  And a signing bonus."

 

He raises an eyebrow.  "And where would I find that paperwork?"

 

"I already have it drafted up.  I just need you to sign it to make it official."

 

He barks out a laugh.  "Certain I would still want you?"

 

"Who doesn't?"  They share a sharp smile together.

 

 

 

He still draws inspiration from the animals around the estate.  The bluebirds who steal eggs, the quails marching along in their small families, the geese that nip at his heels as he flees and swears at them.  Erik is rather fond of those geese.  Now that the estate's grown more wild, the animals are slowly coming back, and Erik enjoys their return.

 

Animals are honest about their dislike, their needs and wants.  People hide too much, contain too much in them waiting to come out at the worst time.  With animals, at least, Erik knows where he stands.

 

Erik looks up from the owl he's working on at Angel.  For once, she's not all in black, a magenta orchid pinned over her heart.

                       

She just stares at something beyond his shoulder.  He looks back, at the owl he's keeping floating.

 

"What?"

 

"That takes some talent."

 

He grunts.

 

She looks away and at him.  She drops a stack of folders on his desk.  "These are the current orders, sorted by date.  Can't avoid the Xaviers any longer."

 

 

 

He sees Emma in his living room, and is about to yell at Angel for letting her in again.  Emma rolls her eyes, having heard his line of thought, and starts singing.  Her voice, trained carefully to perfection, is much better suited to it than his.

 

Erik sits, stunned.  His mouth might be open as well.

 

She looks down her nose to him.  "No wonder the boy hasn't found you; you've been using the wrong song."

 

Erik gathers his words, opens his mouth, but Emma ploughs on.  She uncrosses her legs, and lets her satin heels tap against the floor.

 

"Common enough mistake I suppose.  Schumann's arrangement is more popular.  But Fanny's is prettier.  As if a man would know what it feels like."

 

"Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

 

"You didn't ask for help.  And," she adds, "I was tired of hearing you tinker with the same song over and over and ruining it."

 

"Why do you sound different?"

 

"It's a duet for two women.  Schumann's is for a man alone."  After a pause, she adds, "You really ought to thank Angel; she's the one who recognized it."

 

Erik looks at her.  Emma exhales, in what could be a sigh, and looks out the window, her arm folded over her crossed legs.  _I once took her to opera._

In general, Erik does not like speaking to Emma this way, but sometimes he will let it pass without a sharp and biting rebuke.  Her talent is good at layering words with other concepts, thoughts, and feelings -- and as she says, he never did like talking about those.  He lets her stay for dinner.

 

 

 

Carrying an orange orchid into his workroom she asks, "Have you started on the Xavier order yet?"

 

"No."

  
"It's your current order," she reminds him in an oddly gentle voice.  She sets the plant down near the window, fusses with its leaves a little.

 

Erik takes a glance and sees the order hasn't skipped ahead of anyone, he's just worked his way to it at last.

 

"Thanks," he says, and hopes Angel knows what he means by it.  When she doesn't say anything, just looks at him with her dark eyes he can't read, he continues, "for --"

 

"No need.  Don't like all this heart-to-heart.  We already had enough of that."  She walks through the door, but pauses.  "But you're welcome anyways."  Her orange lacquered nails, painted the same shade as the flower, pass through the door with one last swipe.

 

He looks around his desk, even though he knows where he puts all his orders.  He picks up the fine but worn box and opens it up.  Familiar glass eyes look up at him, the feet still broken.  He whistles to her using the tune Emma taught him, thinking this could not possibly be the bird he gave to Charles, but she begins flapping against the box, ready to fly again.

 

"Hello old friend," he says in wonder.  In the dip of his palm, he winds her up, and as she begins to fly in eager circles, he watches in amazement.


	2. Charles

When Charles was young, he was sent to the gated countryside, out of state for a summer.  He was never told where he was, and he never thought to ask.  The place was wild, a bit overgrown, a friend of the family's who was wealthy and most noticeably _absent_.  The servants, of course were there, and that is how he met Erik. 

 

As he was exploring the premise he was struck by the gardens, a beating heart in the estate placed far to the south.  The gardens were green and lush, and beneath the overhang of wisteria he could hear a bird singing so closely.  He was, of course, surprised to see the songbird was a little toy bird made of spinning gears, with glass eyes and feathers made of bronze, and that it's song was from a small music box next to it.

 

 _Now who made you?_ he thought to himself.

 

 

 

On one of his numerous trips to the garden to revisit the mystery of the birds, there's a boy grabbing for a bird in the tree.  He's using the veranda to help him climb, his fingers reaching through the ivy to find a handhold.

 

"Are you the boy who makes the birds?" Charles calls.  The thought someone near his age could create this incredibly appealing.

 

The boy pauses, looking down from half-way up the tree with his hand still outreached.  Charles recognizes him as the German speaking boy he saw his second day here.

 

"Have you been avoiding me?" Charles exclaims. 

 

The boy tenses and shrugs.  "Do you not like me?" Charles continues.  The boy shrugs again.  Well, when all else fails, flattery never hurt anyone.

 

"This one is my favorite," Charles says, pointing to the bird that has her face in a bird of paradise.

 

"Oh, her.  That one's from when I tried to make them sound like real birds.  She doesn't sound very good."  The boy plucks the bird from her bough and begins climbing down.

 

"Well, I like her anyway."

 

"I want them to fly.  Really fly.  That's why there're so many in the garden; in case they fall, they'll hopefully get caught in the branches and be okay."

 

Charles reaches up, takes the bird from the boy's hand, and looks up her belly.

 

"Is it hard to make them fly?"

 

The boy gives him a flat look.

 

"Oh, well, yes I guess it is hard."  Charles continues despite the boy's silence,  "Look, don't you think we should know each other's names?  We're the only two kids here."

 

Charles has never heard someone give their name so grudgingly.

 

 

 

Nor has Charles ever seen someone so grudgingly give over their books.  It's not as if he'd asked Erik for his last remaining memento of a dead family member; they're just books, and who could be possessive of knowledge?  He vows to himself he'll take such care with these books, Erik will never know he's paging through them all the time.

 

Even in Erik's poorly lit room, the result of a windowless room with only single light bulb in the ceiling and a small lamp, Charles can tell Erik's already found the books.  Whatever Erik's looking at is something he loves dearly.  Curious, Charles draws closer to sneak a peak.

 

It's a music book, its pages larger than the rest of the books.  Erik's fingers skim up and down, and Charles suspects he doesn't know how to read music.  He sits next to Erik on the ground and moves his fingers across the page from left to right, trying to show Erik.

 

Erik tenses up, his shoulders drawing close, before his fingers follow Charles'.  Charles smiles.

 

Erik says very quietly, "It's a song my mother tried to teach me.  I don't like opera.  I don't know how to read it."

 

"It goes like this, right?"  Charles sings the first line in nothing but nonsense syllables.  He might be a bit off-key, but he's got the general tune and timing right.

 

He's doing well-enough.  When he sneaks a peak at Erik, he sees Erik has closed his eyes and let the tension go out of him.  He could be a perfectly beautiful marble sculpture, his weight on his hands behind him.

 

Confident, Charles tries singing it in German.  Erik can't hide the wince on his face.  Charles sees his chance and takes it.

 

"Teach me the German," Charles says, "and I'll teach you to read the music."

 

 

 

Although Charles tries to make Erik talk more, he always resorts to making conversation about the birds, since that's what got Erik to break his silence to begin with. 

 

"They're just toys," Erik says one day in exasperation, wiping sweat from his forehead.

 

"But they're so beautiful.  And you're so talented.  Why waste that?"  Erik looks surprised.

 

"I can't make a living off it," Erik replies as if it is the most simple fact of life.

 

"Of course you can."

 

Erik makes the sour face Charles has come to associate with anytime Erik thinks Charles has said something ridiculous.

 

"Stop changing the subject," Erik says.  "Let's go back to the German."

 

Charles groans.  "You're a slave-driver you know."

 

"Right."

 

"Come one, admit it, you have a heart deep down there.  You like music, no one can like music and be heartless."

 

"And what good is the music when its words are all wrong?"

 

"Oh fine."  Charles flips open the book.  "About this word..."

 

 

 

Charles above all enjoys the freedom with Erik.  In these birds he sees a way out.  With Erik he can romp in the mud, get sweaty, covered in dust, and Erik doesn't care.  Just as long as he washes his hands in time for dinner.  "Respect the work the servants put in," Erik says.

 

Charles is taken aback by the idea of servants.

 

"Well, what would _you_ call them?" Erik replies.

 

"Help?"

 

Erik kicks him in the shoe.  "Don't sugarcoat it."

 

Charles washes his hands.  They eat dinner and throw the bread crusts at the geese at Charles' insistence.

 

 

 

"I have something to show you,"  Erik says near the end of summer.  Charles wonders what in the world it could be, Erik so rarely gives anything of himself without Charles prying it out of him like money from a cold dead fist.

 

Erik leads him into his small room, and Charles is surprised.  He's only been here once before, when Erik was searching for his books.  They'd met outside the rest of the time.  Erik reaches into small drawer whose varnish has seen better days.

 

There's something in his palms, but his long fingers hide it.  He whistles four familiar clear notes, and she awakes.  She spins one lazy circle around the room before falling into his waiting palms.

 

When Charles asked for Erik to help him with his German, he hardly imagined it would yield something so magical as this.  In truth, the estate is large and wide, and he has a freedom to roam the grounds as he wishes, but he is terribly lonely.

 

Charles claps in delight.  Whether Erik sees it or not, there is a future in this.

 

"Again!"  And he grabs Erik's shoulders, trying to spin him around the room.  He's grateful Erik humors him, his steps heavy as the two of them clop about the room, whistling those four notes together.

 

 

 

That hazy blur of happiness does not last.

 

"Put away these childish things, Charles," his brother states.  He takes the bird from him, and snaps the feet in two.  The bird is not his, and Erik had only just made her and he feels so terrible, but he has to give her back to Erik.  He is not a good keeper for such fragile things. Will Erik ever trust him with anything so beautiful and fragile again? 

 

Charles looks to Erik, and is taken aback by the violence written so clearly across his face.  This is not the Erik he knows, and he is alarmed by how quickly Erik shutters it away.  He wants to move towards him, but don't people say you shouldn't move when a predator has its eyes set on you?  He makes himself still, trying to reach out to Erik to send him a rush of reassurance, but whether Erik hears him or not, he does not know.

 

The bird's legs hover above the desk and Erik bites, "I'll fix her tomorrow," and shuts the door with a thud, the bird's feet tumbling down.

 

Charles goes to follow him, but his brother grabs him by the elbow.

 

"Don't," he says.  And Charles quite helplessly looks up at him.  What must Erik think?

 

 

 

What clockwork bird sings in sweet 6/8 time, fluttering its bronze wings, feathers carefully etched, eyes that never dull.  Chirping sweet melodies that he pretends are for him and him alone.

 

He remembers going home, feeling guilty for stealing the bird, but he wanted to keep something of that summer with him.  At first he was disappointed in himself, he should've left the bird, when he thinks it doesn't work.  But then he remembers Erik whistling to his birds.  Charles tries to remember all the songs he sings to his birds.

 

At last, he whistles the tune, and the bird and comes to life and is thrilled and surprised Erik would make her fly to only the song the two of them know.  Her flight is shockingly short -- in all the time it took for him to remember the tune, the winding had undone itself -- and she crashes to the floor because Charles is not expecting that.  Charles feels horrible, rushing to look at her prone form, searching for any more injuries.  Luckily the bird is hardy.

 

For many years he opens the box, remembering Erik, and each time he sings sweetly to greet his old friend.

 

 

 

*

 

 

 

Happiness is a tiny wind-up bird that's been made so only he can wake her.  He could teach the waking melody to someone else, Raven certainly has heard it enough times to, but she seems to know this is something special Charles wants to keep to himself.  He is grateful Raven lets him have this.

 

It is the most precious of gifts because it was freely given, not bought -- something like this could never be bought.  It was given in friendship, with grace and love.  These are things Charles strives for in all his relationships in the following years, but no one's quite commemorated it the same way Erik did.

 

 

 

"That's a lovely bird."

 

"I know," Charles replies, taking her admiration as the bird's due.  "Aren't you envious?" 

 

Raven flashes a grin at him at the old exchange, one they've done since she he first brought the bird home.  She had questions in her eyes, but even she couldn't resist the magic the tiny thing possessed.

 

From her recently re-upholstered seat, a red polka dotted affair that stands out against the old rugs and older furniture, she extends her hand and the bird tries to perch on her finger, chirping infrequently.  She cheeps back at it, puffing out her cheeks.

 

Charles retrieves the bird's case, and carefully opens the wooden box, kept glossy and free of dust by careful tending.  "Shall we give her another turn around the room?"

 

"Sure."

 

The bird's flight is starting to flag, and Charles follows her until her wings slow enough he can grasp her without injuring her wings or his fingers.

 

Holding her in the careful cradle of his palms, he winds her up and whistles to her.  Her eyes blink, and then the neck turns up.  There's a hop, and the bird wobbles.  Charles lifts the bird and then tosses her into the air.

 

Raven inhales, even though after all this time she knows Charles would never harm her.

 

"You keep throwing her like that, one day you're going to forget and she'll drop right out of the sky.  Birds need their feet to land."  She tells him this often, to no avail, but that hasn't changed her effort.  Raven is determined if nothing else.

 

"No.  I've always wanted to fix her, but I -- It seems wrong to fix her when it was my fault she got broken."

 

Raven is quiet, but it isn't the peaceful kind.  The bird continues flying across the room, through the shafts of sunlight making their way through the mostly-closed curtains.

 

Charles holds out his hand now, and when it alights on him, her flight ended he whistles back.  He ignores Raven carefully watching from her seat.

 

 

 

This is also a normal exchange between them:

 

"She's broken Charles."

 

This particular exchange is in the kitchen.  Charles tugs his collar and continues making his toast, hoping she'll let it go.  She doesn't though, he knows she won't.  He takes a glance at her, seeing if she'll let it go this time.

 

Her mouth's in a frown, and her arms crossed over her navy coat, which she hasn't hung up yet.  She's changed her hair, her clothes, her makeup.  She shuffles through looks like others shuffle through their selection of music.  He never knows what she'll look like.  He's come home to a stranger looking at him so many times now.

 

"That's a lovely hair color.  Very vibrant."  He spreads more butter on his toast than he needs to, hoping to buy more time.

 

 _You're changing the topic,_ she sends him.  She says, "She's broken Charles."  He should fight her, but she stands there in righteous indignation, her hair, currently red as blood, makes her face look pale, like some kind of fury coming for him.

 

"No she's not!"  His voice sounds high and too loud to him.  He sets his butter knife down harder than he means to against the counter.

 

Her face is gentle, even if her eyes are full of conviction, and Charles feels weak.  "She used to sing, now she doesn't.  Why won't you take her in to be fixed?"

 

"She still chirps!"

  
"The occasional note or two, but I remember the way she'd play.  Charles, get her fixed.  See if Hank can do anything."

 

 

 

Charles brings Hank home one day and sees the looks he gives Raven.  He doesn't give it too much thought.  Raven eats boys like Hank for breakfast without any sign of indigestion.

 

He likes Hank.  He's a student at the local college and bright.  A promising young mind.  Charles thinks it a shame he's not interested in genetics, but at least his mind will be spent doing something marvelous for the good of humanity.  The boy had won the National Clockwork Championship with his design for a mechanical bird that could be ridden.

 

"It's not really my thing," Hank had said blushing. "I wanted to make a plane, but Alex insisted we use some our imagination for something that would be, as he said, _fucking cool_."

 

"I dare say you both did something _fucking cool_."

 

"Professor!" he said as if Charles should be inable to curse.

 

 

 

Over a game of cards, Raven says,  "Let's be real Charles, you learned German because of a boy you met when you were twelve."

 

"It's a practical language to learn!"  At the glare she delivers from over her hand, he adds, "I'd already learned the basics, why not continue in the pursuit?  Knowledge is its own reward."

 

"You're such a liar."

 

"He liked me Raven."  He tosses out his pair of aces.  "That's my talent, you know."

 

Raven pushes up one card in her hand.  _Pick this one._ "What, did you just mind read him jacking off to you?"

 

 _As if; it's probably the Queen of Spades_.  "Raven!"  Then he adds, "I just know." 

 

 _That trick used to work on you_.  She pushes up another few cards.  "What, woman's intuition?"

 

He grows quiet and then goes on, "The way he looked at me, and the gentle way he'd handle his birds.  I wanted him to look at me like that, and he did and that's all I wanted."

 

There is an appraising look in her eyes.  "If you saw him again, would you use your talent to know if he felt the same?  Your talent's much stronger now."

 

"No,"  he replies firmly.  "I'd want to, of course I would, but I don't want to give people more reason to fear us."

 

"And if he's moved on?"  Raven fingers the clock hanging beneath her collarbone.

 

Charles lowers his eyes.  "Well then."  He takes a card from her hand and gets the Queen of Spades.

 

He raises an eyebrow.  _Is this a hint?_

_Old maid_ , she replies.

 

 

 

Hank comes into the study and his thoughts are so loud it's a prickle against Charles' mind.

 

"Another tiff with Alex?"  It must've been for him to skip straight past Raven and go to him instead.

 

"Yes," he grits out.  His shoulders are hunched up, and Charles can see the way the strength he keeps tucked away uncoils in anger.

 

Charles had only met Alex once, but cocksure as he was, Charles is sure something about him rankles Hank.  Hank, sweet young boy that he is, is someone whom Charles suspects has a long, slow-burning fuse.  He hopes to be around to witness Alex seeing it in action.  It's not as if Hank goes around telling people he did discus in high school and had done _exceedingly_ well at it.

 

Charles has always wondered if Hank had a slight physical talent.  Hank is quite strong and quite fast, not that the poor boy ever uses any of it.  He'd had a hard enough time getting Hank to show him his feet.

 

He wonders --

 

"He keeps telling me to man up and ask your sister out."  Hank realizes what he's said and starts pacing.  _I can't believe I said that._

"It's not as if I didn't know, Hank," Charles replies in amusement.

 

"Wait, does this mean I have your blessing?"

 

"Yes.  But I hardly think that'll matter to Raven.  Best ask her yourself."

 

 

 

"Who would you even let touch it?"  Raven taps her silver tipped pen against the counter.

 

"Erik, of course," he replies quite serenely.

 

"Charles, there are plenty of good mechanics."

 

"I don't want _good_.  Like the fan," he says looking up at the slowly spinning blades. "A marvelous piece of machinery, but there's no life to it."

 

"You say Hank's work has life."

 

"But his work is above all _functional_.  Great trains that are fast, sleek and dangerous planes!  This bird is art, and while Hank's works are art, he wouldn't know how to make something like this."  He leaves it unsaid that the only reason Hank's work has been so animated lately has been because of his collaboration with Alex.  It's a partnership that's doing great things for both of their respective designs, but he'd rather it not get back to Hank that he'd thought his work, while brilliant, a bit lifeless.

 

"You are so far gone."

 

"How is it going with Hank?"

 

Raven gives him a look.  "I hope you didn't lead him on.  He's sweet, and if he'd asked me out a few years earlier I would've said yes.  But you know he's not what I'm looking for right now.  He can try again later if he wants, maybe I'll be interested again."

 

"I don't particularly get it."

 

Her look is both sour and contrite.  "What's so hard to understand?  Sometimes I want cock," and he knows she purposely uses that word to make him flinch, "and sometimes I don't.   And _don't_ even _think_ of saying it's a phase."

 

"I never would!"

 

"Uh-huh."

 

"I just don't see why you can't like both right now!  Hank's a nice boy."

 

"I have the patience of a saint you know, to see right through you and not take this to heart."  She knocks over his queen with her knight.  "Don't say you want to see me with someone and happy because you know that's what I'm going to tell _you_."

 

"Ah..."

 

"Time to make a strategic retreat?"  She grins as she surveys the chess board.

 

"Uh..."

 

"I'll go do some grilling with the fish.  You want some?"

 

"Yes, sure!"  He takes the out she gives him.

 

 

 

Hank calls him.  Charles picks up the receiver first, then the mouthpiece.

 

"Raven wants me to come and look at a clockwork bird you have.  She's being more obtuse about it than usual.  I want to make sure this something you knew about?"

 

He didn't, but he doesn't tell Hank that.  Instead he assures Hank it's alright.

 

The next afternoon finds the three of them in the drawing room.  After examining the bird and trying to turn it on, he hands her over to Charles to turn on.  Raven stands in the corner, with arms folded, her teal skirt dotted with sequins throwing light around the room.

 

Hank sets down his equipment and takes off the magnifying attachment for his glasses.  He squints, then rubs his eyes and says, "I can't fix this.  I'd have to take it apart to do it again, but I don't know if I could put it back together.  Also," he continues sheepishly, "I'm not really a restoration specialist.   The materials and techniques here are a little outdated.  If I could put it back together, I'd do it with newer tech and materials."  And seeing Charles face he adds, "Which I don't think is what you want."

 

Charles thanks him for his time, and Raven pats Hank's shoulder, probably whispering to him how hard it is to please Charles.

 

As Hank packs his equipment into his black bag of engineering tricks, he pushes up his glasses with both fingers at the ends of the frames.  He remarks, "You know, keying clockwork to something specific as sound is advance work.  Your bird has a very simple version of it, but simple doesn't mean easy."

 

"The special ones, they only fly when you sing to them right," Charles tells him.

 

Hank nods, pushing his glasses up yet again.  "Yes.  If you want, I could ask around.  Alex might know, or you might try Magda's Menagerie."

 

Raven gives Charles numerous pointed looks, and Hank looks between the two of them.  "Ah, I'll just let myself out then."

 

"No, I'll do it."  Raven throws an arm over his shoulder, showing him the exit, but still looks at Charles as long as she can.

 

 

 

Raven's eyes soften as she draws a fortifying breath, and Charles knows what comes next.

 

"Charles, you need someone.  I won't always be here, and you -- you're too much a romantic to move on until you meet the boy -- the man, now.  I want you to be happy."  _You're not going to see anyone until I come back, except maybe Hank.  You shouldn't have to live that way._

 

The entryway seems colder and emptier than it should be, as if Raven's already left for her conference.  Her navy luggage, still looking new except for a scuff near the wheels, sits near the door.  She's already donned her scarf, knotted and tucked into her coat.  It's always easiest for her to say things like this when she's about to leave.  It's easier for both of them.

 

"Don't you think it's time to move on from this Charles?" she says softly.  "You can't go on living like this.  Sell the house, there's nothing but bad memories for you here."

 

 _Please_.

 

She presses a kiss to his cheek and leaves.  Charles stands there on the hardwood floor, staring at the door.

 

 

 

"Do I seem gay to you?"

 

"What?"

 

"You're gay, right?  Not that there's anything wrong with that," Hank hastily adds.

 

Charles wonders how they went from discussing the genetic factor of talents -- despite being an engineering major, Hank's taking an advanced genetics class for fun, and comes to Charles to discuss things ever since he first heard him lecture -- to this.  Charles still laments the fact Hank's first scientific love is not genetics.  Charles moves his papers to the side, suspecting no more genetics will be discussed.

 

"I know that Hank."

 

"But do I seem gay?" he persists, even though he's agitated.

 

"You really can't tell these kinds of things Hank."

 

"But how do you know if you're, you know... flirting with the right guy."

 

"You just hope so," he replies dryly.

 

"Really?"

 

"Yes.  Although I'm sure if you invent some detector you'd become quite the darling."  Charles can already see the gears turning in Hank's head.  "What brought this on?" he adds trying to maintain some direction to this conversation.

 

"I..."  Hank shoves his hands in his pockets and tries very valiantly to look at Charles but fails.

 

Charles reaches out and Hank looks relieved to not have to say a word.  He takes Charles' hand and pushes a messy jumble of emotions to Charles that he can't even begin to sort out.

 

They sit in silence, Charles moving to fix a kettle, and Hank settles himself into the small table he and Raven squeezed into, preferring to eat there than the dining room with its nine-foot long monstrosity of a table.  He moves around the kitchen, knowing Hank will feel better if he isn't looking at him. "Well, the important thing I think is that worrying about it won't make you happy.  If it would make you happy why worry about it?"

 

"Oh.  Oh."

 

Charles now turns to look at him under the pretense of pouring the water, and sees that look of stunned and surprised revelation on Hank's face. 

 

They drink their hot water, Charles adds honey and lemon to his, Hank drinks his as is.  There is the comfort of companionship in the echo of their link together, as they look out the bay windows and into the afternoon sun.

 

 

 

While Raven is gone, he conducts a series of local lectures.  He's on good terms with the staff, but because he travels constantly, he's never become better acquainted with the students he lectures.  It's rare someone like Hank will actually take Charles up on his offer to write or phone him.

 

On a muggy and overcast Thursday, Charles guests for Moira on the effect culture and geography have on minor talents.  He and Moira had dated for awhile, and Charles thought their break-up had been amiable, but somehow they don't see each other at all anymore.  Most of their contact consist of missives while Moira is gone for her governmental work.  Rather convenient that, never being able to talk with him because of work.

 

Hank finds Charles cleaning up after a lecture, shuffling his lecture, shutting off the lights, closing the door behind him and listening to the gears rotate to lock it.  Charles likes the sound of the gears.

 

"It's a bit out-dated," Hank remarks.  "We've advanced past audible gears like that since people can listen to them in order to pick them."

 

"I like the sound," Charles remarks, his ear still near the door and his hip pressed out.  He thinks of his bird and the way her gears keep tempo for her.  "I'm a sentimentalist."

 

"I've noticed."  Hank shuffles his feet and takes his hands in and out of his coat pockets.  Charles unfolds himself upright and gives Hank his attention.  "Look," Hank says.  "That bird clearly means a lot to you.  And I know you don't want to change it, Raven told me that.  But when you care for something, don't you want to make sure it stays in good condition?  Time wears everything including clockwork.

 

"I'm not saying you should totally rebuild the bird.  Just take off some of the rust, polish her up, oil her gears.  Have someone who knows what they're doing take a look at.  You can't go wrong with Magda's Menagerie.  I don't think I've heard any complaints about their work, just the owner's personality."

 

It's odd to receive advice from Hank, an odd turn from their current relationship.  His bewilderment must show in some capacity, because Hank goes sheepish at the end of his presumably prepared and rehearsed speech.

 

"You're always so helpful to me Professor, and I wanted to thank you.  I think it would make you happy to fix that bird up, so why worry that you might lose her forever?"

 

Charles' eyes widen a just a bit.  "When did you become so smart?"

 

He gives a grin, all confidence, and Charles wishes this is the face Hank could sure the world all the time.  "It's not hard when all I did was steal your words."

 

"Don't forget to properly cite that," he replies absently, his mind running away.  Hank laughs.

 

 

 

Charles returns home and looks for the bird.  It's not where it usually is.  He knows it must be somewhere in the study, but the room's a bit of a wreck.  He begins sweeping through the room, starting with the windows and making his way across the room diagonally.  As he goes he begins sorting papers, putting them back, sweeps the floor, and begins polishing the furniture.

 

When he doesn't find the oak box in the study he begins searching the rest of the house.  As he does so, he also begins drawing curtains open, opening windows, even starts cleaning the place.

 

Raven finds him as he's mopping up the kitchen counter.

 

"Have you seen my bird, Raven?" he asks, still scrubbing the grease off from above the stove.

 

"You should change out of your nice clothes when you clean house."  She vigorously brushes off dust from his sweater.

 

"Hey, I just cleaned the floor!"

 

She rolls her eyes and opens the icebox.   She leans into the lowest shelf and grabs the jug of milk that was there when she left two weeks ago.  She shakes it, pops the lid off, and then sniffs it.  She settles down at the kitchen table with a plop. 

 

"I send it to be repaired," she replies pouring her milk into a teacup.

 

" _Raven!_ "  He puts down his wipe, she sets down her teacup against the table without a saucer or coaster.

 

"I was tired of you moping over the bird, so I sent in a repair request to that god-awfully cranky engineer behind Magda's Menagerie."

 

"What?  Raven!  I told you I -- "

 

Raven waves him off and toes off her heels.  "If you had your way you'd wait until the bird had died and then some.  I'm just moving things along quicker."

 

"I was going to do it myself!"

 

"Go on and tell me I'm ri-- what?"

 

Charles takes off his glasses to rub his eyes.  "You seem awfully grumpy for doing something you've been set on doing."

 

She reaches across the table for a cork coaster, also there since she left.  "Well, you'll be glad to know I couldn't convince him to take my order as a rush."

 

"It'll be awhile until the bird comes back then?"

 

"Not if I have any say about it.  And why do you have glasses?  You don't need them to clean!"

 

He'd fished them out to read some of the smaller font in an old paper he'd found beneath the sink, but had forgotten he was wearing them.  _I hear it's attractive._

"And who do you have to be attractive for?  A boy from that long ago?  Bleh!" 

 

 

 

Raven aggressively campaigns to move her order up, and Charles feels sorry for whoever has to deal with the letters, flowers, wine, and fresh fruit she keep sending.  Charles isn't sure why she's so insistent, but there's a certain fever and verve to her, so he doesn't try very hard to persuade otherwise.

 

While Raven wraps up a box of cigars, the latest item in her quest, he says over breakfast, "I don't think bribery is going to work."

 

She scowls at the package and wraps it up with twine.  Charles moves her plate of eggs out of her way so she doesn't accidentally knock it over in her zealousness.

 

"What about a visit in person?" he proposes.  "I could see him when I'm done with this circuit of lectures.  Maybe if I apologize he'll be more amenable.  The last one is in Pennsylvania and that's where he is, yes?"

 

"Ye-es."  She lays her hand on top of her ready-to-post package and narrows her eyes.  "Why are you being so amenable?" 

 

"Then it's settled.  Quit pestering the poor man, and at the end of summer I'll go and visit to apologize.  I'll even give him a firm handshake since he's put up with your insistence."

 

"Please do," she replies shockingly chipper.  "Have fun you old man you!"  She waves her fingers.

 

Charles grabs his coat, scarf, and cap and bids her goodbye, wondering what suddenly put her in such a good mood.

 

 

 

Charles arrives at the address for Magda's Menagerie and is filled with a strange sense of _déjà_ vu.  He checks the numbers written in chalk on the mailbox against the one in ink on Raven's paper.  It's a large estate, lots of green grass, a bit overgrown, no gates in sight, so he can't tell how large it is.  There's a series of buildings; a shed, a summer house, the main house which is the smallest main house he's ever seen.

 

He knocks on the door, a small thing, with a bell and no knocker.

 

There is no reply, not even the sound of movement.  "Hello?" he calls, and pulls the bell.  He can hear the matching bell on the other side of the door ring.

 

A woman opens the door with straightened hair and black knit dress.  "Who are you?" she asks with her hand still on the door, ready to shut it in his face most likely.

 

"I'm Charles Xavier, I came to -- "

"Oh.  _Xavier_."  And he knows his sister's reputation has preceded him.  "You should know bribery doesn't do you any good.  If anything, he'll bury it further, and if he doesn't I will.  I hate rich kids like you."

 

"Ah, you see, I'm hear to apologize.  My sister's the one who's been dong this.  Against my will!"

 

Her frown shows how entirely unimpressed by him she is.

 

He presses on.  "But she did it with a good heart, you see I have this clockwork bird --"

 

"Of course you have a clockwork, what else would you send here?"  She settles in for an argument, taking her hand from the door and placing it on her waist.

 

"A clockwork bird a gift from a dear childhood friend.  It's very precious to me you see, she only flies if you sing this to her," and he whistles out the opening notes and everything about her changes.  She takes a quick look behind her, and he sees her dress is backless.

 

She turns back to him, and he can see the change in her demeanor in the widening of the eyes, a softening of her arms at the elbows. 

 

"Mr. Xavier," she says.  "I am utterly sincere when I say the owner isn't here.  You'll have to come by another time.  Do you want something to drink before you go?"

 

 

 

"What do you mean, you weren't able to meet with the engineer?" Raven exclaims.

 

"Exactly that," Charles replied, unwinding his scarf and hanging it on the coat rack.  "She did say please when she asked me to pass her the plate of cookies."

 

"Wait, were you talking to the girl who works there?"  Raven follows him to the coat closet where he hangs his pea-coat, a gift from Raven two years ago.

 

"Yes?"

 

"The one who's really rude and obstinate?"  She stands in the exit of the closet, and although Charles tries to go around her, she blocks his escape.

 

"Well, she seemed that way at first, but she was quite pleasant by the end.  She did say please."  He squeezed himself beneath her armpit, relieved to have made it past her. 

 

"No way!  I have way more social skills than you do!"

 

"Maybe she doesn't like women."

 

Raven turns out the light in the closet and shuts the door.  "Charles, not everything is about that!"

 

 

 

Three weeks later, the Xaviers receive a package with a return address from Pennsylvania.  

"It must be for you," Raven says handing it to him.

 

It's a very plain package, brown paper wrapping, the return address stamped, and their address written in careful script.  He looks at the postage and sees it was sent with the overnight mail.

 

"That's odd," Charles remarks.

 

Raven peers at the postage.  "Maybe they feel bad about something?"

 

"No, I don't think so," he replies.  He slips his index finger beneath the tape and carefully unwraps it trying to figure out what this is.  With the weight of the package, he's unsurprised to reveal a box.  He is surprised to see the box is made of metal with a wooden latch.  Instead of carvings, the box is inlaid with wood, and edged in pearl; the sides are carefully etched with a garden full of animals.

 

He opens it, not knowing what to expect.

 

It is a bird, but it is not his.

 

He takes her out and looks at her against the sunlight.  This bird is newer, the clockwork more precise.  Charles is about to riot, but now freed from the box, her wind-up starts turning.  She hops in his hand, and opens her mouth.

 

And she sings back to him in perfect time the rest of the melody, made richer by what improvement he knows not.  He closes his eyes as she makes her course throughout the room, listening closely.  Her tinny sound is gone, made smooth by chords, no longer just the melody.  Charles closes his eyes and lets it wash over him, cool and damp and rich like smelling the sea when landlocked.

 

When she finishes she pecks at the velvet lining of the box, looking at him with the sort of irritation only a clockword bird can convey.  This is his bird, grown finer with age, her rough edges smoothed away -- the material is finer, the symphony louder, the details exquisite and even though Charles knows this is not his bird he still feels wonder in his heart.  
  
"Okay, okay," he says, and pulls at the corner of the silk to reveal a note.

 

_Come back for her if you'd like._

_-E.L._

"Raven, I have to go!"

 

She comes back into the room, having left it without his notice to give him privacy.  "Charles, what, wait, where are you going --?"  But it is too late, because he was out the door, the box tucked under the crook of his arm.


	3. Duet

Charles knocks, and when he doesn't receive an answer, pushes the door open.

 

He knows there's a fellow telepath there before he even sees her, like knows like after all.  In white silk and diamond jewels, she smiles like a cat with a bird in its mouth.  _Why hello sweetling._

_I'd much rather you'd forgo the pet names if you please._

_He's out in the garden.  Hurry along now._ She directs him up the stairs.  _Don't you want to see him at work?  There's a balcony overlooking it; it has quite the view._

A bit apprehensive of her ready aid, he keeps her in the corner of his eyes as he passes her to get to the stairs.

 

"Don't say I'm not a romantic," she says.  There's a reply from someone else in the house, but Charles can't make it out as he climbs the stairs.

 

 

 

Erik is very particular about when he works in the garden, seeing if his latest animal is viable outside of his workplace.  He's very aware of the metal near him, which is why Angel knows not to come onto the balcony.  He can feel the vibrations change as someone puts their hands ont he ledge, bringing something else made of metal with them as well.  He looks up to tell off Emma.

 

With all the years, he's imagined what he would say.  But looking up at Charles, that boy grown all tall, and those freckles still there, he opens his mouth and out comes:

 

 _"Aus meinen Tränen sprießen_  
 _Viel blühende Blumen hervor,_  
 _Und meine Seufzer werden_  
 _Ein Nachtigallenchor._  
  
 _Und wenn du mich lieb hast, Kindchen,_  
 _Schenk' ich dir die Blumen all',_  
 _Und vor deinem Fenster soll klingen_  
 _Das Lied der Nachtigall_."

 

Charles is singing along by the end, off key, but his accent much better now.

 

"You remembered," Charles says with a small smile. 

 

Erik distantly thinks he should be mortified to sing in the open like this.  Charles leans over the balcony with one arm.  The animals Erik were working on maraud across the garden, a product of the excess energy he has to direct somewhere.

 

"Of course," Erik replies.  Even though he cannot see it, he can feel the metal box Charles carries with him.

 

"My sister's the one who sang it to me.  She was learning to sing and she just kept singing it.  She likes women composers.

 

"Hello Erik," Charles adds at last.  He pushes himself over the edge of the balcony, his hips pressing into the metal, and Erik lets himself imagine that Charles has waited for him just as long.

 

"Come down," he replies.

 

 

 

Erik takes Charles' hand when he comes down.  It's a singular act of courage, and Charles squeezes back and feels some of the tension seep out of Erik.  With his free hand, he gives the box back to Erik.  Erik nods, and leads Charles to the workroom and to the bird hand-in-hand.

 

"Here she is."  Erik stands back, and releases his hand, realizing Charles still wears too much wool.

 

Charles goes to the work bench, and the first thing he notices are her feet.  She has those again, in copper just like the rest of her, and can stand again.

 

"I don't use copper anymore," Erik says from behind him.  His voice is lower than he remembered, but then, he'd known all along Erik wouldn't be exactly as he left him.  "But I thought she'd be better this way."

 

Charles nods.  "Shall we wind her up?"

 

Erik agrees, and placing his hands on the table behind him, gives his weight to the table and watches Charles pale fingers turn the wind.  He lets her spin, and she walks on the table, as if she's always had feet, but still won't land until Charles holds out his cupped palms.  Her tiny clockwork feet prick his palm, but Charles doesn't mind, and she coos into his palm.

  
"I think she likes me."  And then Charles grins, "Do you?"

 

Erik is taken aback, "Charles, really."

 

He sets the bird down and then he's in Erik's personal space as if they were boys again, but they're not, and Erik's feelings aren't the same.

 

"Is it frightening if I say..."  His fingers creep closer to Erik's on the table.  "You remember, I have a talent for minds, may I...?"  He makes a gesture with his hands, his fingertips tapping the table.  Erik understands what he's asking because he has learned a little in his friendship with Emma.

 

"You won't go through my memories will you?"

 

"No.  Only if you nudge them towards me.  This is so I can tell you better."

 

Erik nods.  He understands the way telepaths communicate other than words.  He places his hand over Charles', who flips his hand so he can link his fingers with Erik.  He gives a loose squeeze and then --

 

It is a private thing, and Erik can be jealous, and this is a thing he does not want to share with anyone else.  Charles retreats, loosening his hand, and looking so quietly content.  Erik chases him, leaning into his body.  Determined to bend that quiet contentment into something that burns hotter and brighter, he takes Charles' face in a firm grip and meets him with a kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Erik and Charles sing is Fanny Mendelssohn's Aus meinen Tränen sprießen, a translation can be found [here](http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Dichterliebe/Aus_meinen_Tr%C3%A4nen_sprie%C3%9Fen). There is in fact, another arrangement of the same lyrics by Schumann, which is what Emma references when she says Erik is using the wrong arrangement. Speaking of music, a playlist of the songs I wrote this to, can be found [here](http://nagasasu.livejournal.com/151322.html).
> 
> Some miscellaneous thoughts: while memory is not a crucial theme, I was curious how two people can have very different memories of the same events. Thus, Erik and Charles' childhood sections have very different focuses and sometimes contradict each other. In other odd news, both this and my last RB entry have Hank/Alex side stories floating about -- I don't think I'll get around to writing them, but for those curious, let me know. Also, I imagine now that Angel is retired from more mainstream ballet companies, she gets her dragonfly tattoos -- that's not to say her career as a dancer is done though. She just discovers horizons made of hills and icebergs and deserts are just as fulfilling as the ocean's horizon.
> 
> Thank you for reading! Concrit is always welcome, and remember to check out paperstain's art [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/959821)!


End file.
